Amersham falls to GE for £5.8bn

Sunday 12 October 2003 10:06 BST

MEDICAL imaging group Amersham today bowed to an agreed £5.8bn takeover bid from GE, the giant US conglomerate.

GE, which already has a partnership with Amersham, is offering its own shares, valuing Amersham shares at 800p, a 45% premium to the price on Tuesday, the day before it revealed it had received a bid approach.

Sir William Castell, the long-serving chief executive of Amersham, whose shares and options package is now worth £4.2 million, will join the GE board. The US company said that there was no overlap between the two businesses and it envisaged no threat to Amersham jobs.

The deal is in GE shares which are among the most easily traded in the world, but private investors will be offered a special facility if they want to turn their Amersham shares into cash quickly.

Because the deal may take up to six months to win regulatory approval there is also a so-called collar on the offer which guarantees that whatever happens to GE shares over this time the bid will not fall short of 800p a share.

Amersham was the first company to be privatised by the Thatcher Government. When it was spun out of the Atomic Energy Authority and listed on the stock market in 1982 it had a market value of just £45m.